The Last Twilight by Marjorie M. Liu

Comments: A few Liu reviews back, I likened Red Heart Of Jade to a tangle of painful knots and complained of weariness after running for my life, afraid and in the dark, no wiser than the primary characters. Well, I get it now. With any Liu title, it’s all about trust. Trust that comes both from experience and the proverbial leap of faith.

Liu’s prose is unmatched. No other can elicit the same breath-hitching, heart-aching, weighted-limb sensation that she does, through words and imagery as dense and laden as the African jungle she transports us to in her latest installment of the Dirk and Steele series.

Like Red Heart of Jade, I suffered doubt early on in The Last Twilight—thinking I had missed something somewhere back at the story’s beginning. However, I was so overcome by the pain and unease permeating every scene that I could do no more than just feel, page after page. I experienced this book, carried along on Liu’s words, pulled under, until I just let go. A much more enjoyable read because I stopped searching for that jumping on point, stopped wondering if I had missed a critical piece of information. Instead, I simply let go and trusted Liu to deliver me safely unto the magical and fated HEA.

It is a requirement Liu places on Rikki and Amiri in The Last Twilight as well. Their trust in one another is earned throughout their experience on the run, right up until that moment it becomes necessary to leap the last bit of distance. It is such a poignant moment, trembling with fear and honesty rarely found in mortals. It almost sounds silly or amateur to say that Liu is skilled at characterization. She redefined characterization, putting us in the hearts of men and women—whatever their form—consumed by powerful emotion, gripped in terror and most often, reduced entirely to survival mode. My own ability to withstand the sensory overload is as questionable as that of the characters. We really do not know where Liu will take them, what they will endure and who or what will be left to go on. Trust. You have to have it.

And oh is it worth it. You might be wrung out by the end, but there will always be that blanket of peace at the book’s close. As well as the promise of more of the unknown.